This “companion” to the “intriguing” and “enigmatic” “para-apostolic and post-apostolic” collection of writings known as the “Apostolic Fathers” (AF) is one of the best introductions to this corpus available. One major reason for such an estimation is its breadth of coverage: whereas most introductions to the AF consist of chapters on the individual documents included in the collection, fully one half of this volume is given over to discussions of issues and topics that are important for understanding them in their (largely) second-century social and religious contexts.
Harrower's brief introduction notes both the artificiality and value of the collection (though he does not adequately deal with the tension between the artificiality of the collection and the claim that the AF “are representative of the growth and diversification of early Christian communities”), and then offers short overviews of each chapter. Then come nine thematic or topical chapters: 1. “The Roman Empire in the Era of the Apostolic Fathers” (Michael J. Svigel); 2. “The Image of Jews and Judaism in the Apostolic Fathers” (Philip Alexander); 3. “Second-Century Diversity” (David E. Wilhite); 4. “The Jesus Tradition in the Apostolic Fathers” (Stephen E. Young); 5. “The Text of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers” (Paul Foster); 6. “The Reception of Paul, Peter, and James in the Apostolic Fathers” (Benjamin Edsall); 7. “Between Ekklēsia and State: The Apostolic Fathers and the Roman Empire” (Andrew Gregory); 8. “Church, Church Ministry, and Church Order” (David J. Downs); and 9. “The Apostolic Mothers” (Clare K. Rothschild, who discusses sixteen women and mentions several others).
The chapters by Alexander and Wilhite are outstanding. The former offers a concise, authoritative, and geographically inclusive account that acknowledges the “dismissive and aggressive” attitude toward Judaism of many of the documents, during a time when “classic Christian anti-Judaism was forged” and, in the particular case of Barnabas, contextualizes without excusing that document's supersessionism. Wilhite offers a nuanced discussion of the challenges of defining and measuring diversity and sketches the multiple scholarly interpretive paradigms that have shaped the discussion. The subsequent essays are all very good and well-nuanced as they deal with their assigned topic. Less effective is the first essay, which (contra the implication of the chapter's title) creates a timeline structured around the chronology of the emperors on which it then places the various documents; moreover, the dates supplied in this chapter for some of the documents stand in considerable tension with the discussion of those documents in later chapters in the volume (e.g., the unwarranted claim that “it is hardly doubted” that 1 Clement is Domitianic [p. 17]). The “empire,” however, is more than the emperors; and attention to the social, religious, and urban contexts of the early Christian movement would be welcome.
Chapters 10–17 cover the individual documents: 10. 1 and 2 Clement (Janelle Peters); 11. “The Letters of Ignatius” (Jonathon Lookadoo); 12. “Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians and the Martyrdom of Polycarp” (Paul A. Hartog); 13. “Didache” (Clayton N. Jefford); 14. “The Epistle of Barnabas” (Reidar Hvalvik); 15. “The Shepherd of Hermas as Early Christian Apocalypse” (Dan Batovici); 16. “The Epistle to Diognetus and the Fragment of Quadratus” (Michael F. Bird and Kirsten H. Mackerras); and 17. “The Fragments of Papias” (Stephen C. Carlson). Each deals (in varying order) with the expected topics (authorship, date, key themes, etc.). These chapters are uniformly well-done, and in some chapters are unmatched: for example, Batovici's coverage of the manuscript evidence for the text of the Shepherd, or Carlson's chapter on the fragments of Papias, which summarizes his recent monumental monograph. The occasional blip (e.g., the absence of any discussion of what Polycarp means by the term “righteousness” in Pol. Phil., where it is a major topic and is used in a non-Pauline sense) do not distract from the overall high quality of these chapters.
Production or editorial slips are rare but do occasionally affect the sense: e.g., the first full sentence on p. 48 is missing one or more words; on 105 line 26, for “1 Clement” read instead “Pol. Phil.”; and on pp. 111–112, the introduction to the discussion of the use of Ephesians mentions Ignatius, Polycarp, and the Shepherd, as does the conclusion. In between, there is a two-paragraph discussion of Ignatius and a long paragraph on the Shepherd—but not a word about Polycarp's possible use of Ephesians. It certainly appears that a paragraph (or more) discussing Pol. Phil. 12.1 is missing from this section.
Overall, this is an excellent addition to the “Cambridge Companions” series. The chapters on various documents comprising the AF offer reliable guides both to the document and current scholarship regarding it. The nine thematic chapters set this volume apart from similar volumes and add greatly to its worth and usefulness.
